A Beautiful Collision
by Nimfalath
Summary: Everything falls apart when the group makes one fatal mistake, leaving two of their members gone forever with Lyoko. But when the truth behind Lyoko is finally revealed, ends are tied, hopes return, and a shocking twist ends XANA's reign forever. AxJ, UxY
1. Introduction

_Author's note: I don't own Code Lyoko, but I own this story. As the President Sylar, I reserve the right to devour your brain if you steal my work._

_This is rated T for future character death and violence (even after the next chapter), and this story contains or hints at most pairings in the Lyokoverse. _

_This Introduction is written by Ulrich, years after the actual story takes place. It's called framing. I'm so wasted on you... Anyway, this opening should set off several flashing lights in your head. Yes, your proper reaction should be "what the deuce?! I don't understand," because by the last chapter, you will understand where the Introduction came from._

_At this current point in time I have six or seven chapters written out of an expected eleven or twelve. Therefore, I have no excuse for not updating except for the suspense. :-)

* * *

_

_A Beautiful Collison; An Introduction_

I discovered this tome by chance one evening--it was the same evening, it happened, that the author of the content died. Age didn't kill him, nor did he chance to pass in his sleep. Jeremie Belpois' life ended when a drunk driver slammed into his car a few weeks after his forty-first birthday, and his own car plummeted into the ravine that winded beneath the bridge that had carried his car. I would like to say that he died at the impact, but, I was told, he most likely drowned. It was an ironic death, considering the subject I'm about to show you, but it tore my heart open. Apparently I was his closest friend. Jeremie never married, nor did he have any family left, so I was allowed into his apartment and told to look through his things for anything I might find significant. I searched through his belongings until I came upon his laptop. It was much newer than the one that always accompanies my memories of him, but it was so like the Jeremie I remember. That's how I found this narrative.

It seemed strange that Jeremie counted me as his closest friend; in reality, I had only tried to be kind to him when we were children, and I hadn't spoken to him in at least twenty years. After I married, Jeremie dropped all contact with me. I thought it might have been out of spite--he never did seem to approve of my wife, Lisa Stern--and I suppose I was right in my assumption. Jeremie had also been close to Odd, my roommate from long ago, but I assume he was still closer to me than anyone else. I think a lot of it had to do with the fantastic stories he wrote.

On his laptop there were several stories similar to this one, most of them extraordinary tales about our childhood, which usually involved the three of us--Odd, Jeremie, and myself--plus a few others that I have never met. He wrote about that Japanese girl in the grade above us, and of the pink-haired computer program "cousin" of Odd (I later asked him about this, and Odd responded that none of his cousins had pink hair, and none had the name "Aelita") with whom Jeremie apparently fell in love. I would have thought these stories bizarre fabrications, except that he described us all so _accurately_ that it is hard to believe they are fiction. It is so real that it almost seemed to come alive as I read, especially this particular story, which touched me more than any of the others. This tale was almost heartbreaking, and it made me wonder--though it may seem absurd--if maybe there is some truth to these entries buried on Jeremie's hard drive. He hadn't titled this, but I hope I have done him right by calling it "A Beautiful Collision," for that really is what this tragedy is about. I have since looked up each person in this tale (it seems nostalgia brought on by this story has forced me to look up these old classmates), and even returned to the factory he writes so passionately about. The computers and scanners do not exist, but, though it is still disappointing, that is exactly what I had expected. Jeremie himself wrote that they were long gone.

The following preface did not belong to the original story, but I believe this part is necessary in order to fully grasp the tale. I only hope that others may enjoy this as much as I, especially those few whom it involves.

-Ulrich Stern

In dedication to "Aelita"


	2. Only Time

_Alright, if you read the intro, this may be confusing. I'm so sorry that I didn't make it more clear... -;;_

_The rest of the story is narrated by Jeremie, beginning with this chapter. Only the Introduction was from Ulrich's perspective. _

_This takes place before Season 4!!!! THIS CHAPTER IS AN ALTERNATE SEASON 3 FINALE._

* * *

Only Time 

-----

There was a sudden silence as Aelita flew backwards through the air. The glowing, blue geometry of the room whirled through her peripheral vision, but she saw only the cold eyes of her attacker. The ground rushed up at Aelita, taking hold of her as she watched her body vanish from the fifth sector. Her thin, nymph-like body decomposed into squares of data, retrogressing fast until only a frame remained to crash into the sharp wall. In her last moments on Lyoko, she had time to catch a glimpse of us—me, Yumi, Ulrich, Odd, William…no, _XANA_. She cried out with her last virtual breath, and after a whir of lights and pictures rushed past her, she collapsed inside the scanner. She didn't have to step out of the small, cylindrical space to know that she was on the other side. Tears had formed and left her eyes even before she stepped into the darkness of the real world and the dismal atmosphere of the run-down factory. Before she took her seat in the tall chair, the throne of Lyoko, her face was wet with frustration and pure despair.

"Jeremie!" she cried through the headpiece, staring through tears at the mainframe of the supercomputer. "Jeremie, what do I do?! What can I do…?" Her voice boomed through the sky of Lyoko, announcing to the virtual world that its omniscient god had returned to watch over them. Aelita had always enjoyed playing god while I took my turns learning on Lyoko. She enjoyed looking after us even when she couldn't be physically with us, but then she always knew she would be the first to set foot on the world when it came time to deactivate XANA. This time was different. She was Lyoko's goddess, but there was nothing she could do to help her friends, her world, her _home_. Even with the power of the supercomputer there was nothing to be done. She didn't have to hear my desperate response to know that.

(Aelita?) It was Yumi. (How many more life points…?)

"You have thirty," Aelita answered quickly, trying hard to regain her composure. "The sphere only has…" She trailed off. "There's only one more shield layer."

She buried her head in her hands, shaking from the force of her emotions. It was only a matter of time, she knew, and so she averted her eyes from the screen and ripped the earpiece from her head, hurling it at the cold ground in rage.

* * *

(Aelita?) Ulrich called. (Hey, AELITA!!) It was no use. Whatever the case, Aelita had lost contact with the Lyoko warriors. He knew he only had a few moments, anyway, so what did it really matter whether she was there or not?

Yumi shot him a poignant, knowing glance and immediately took off toward the dark commander, her friend and enemy. William's pale face was framed with dark hair, and his contrasting black and white uniform almost reflected the moral battle proceeding within his mind. His eyes appeared vacant of life, but somewhere inside his own body William was being held captive by XANA. Though William directed the advance, it was XANA directing William's body.

(Careful, Yumi!) Ulrich cried after her. (You've got the most life-points.)

She nodded solemnly, and Ulrich felt his heart stop when he recognized the despair in her almond eyes. Yumi's mask of white paint couldn't hide the sad tone that overtook her body. She took off and hurled her powerful fans at the beasts barring her path, pressing ever forward to confront the monster that had been her friend.

"Watch out behind you, Ulrich!" cracked a voice through air. When had Odd been devirtualized?

Ulrich whirled around in time to parry an array of lasers from his body. The relentless assault continued until he found himself pushed up against the edge of the chasm. Below him the angular core room of Sector 5 jutted up at him ominously, and he burst into his super-sprint to escape the long fall. As a streak of yellow, he came around the Creeper and drove his blade into the circular eye of the monster. At the impact of his sword the thing exploded, and Ulrich turned his attention to Yumi and William. Though Yumi could have throttled the old William, XANA knew how to use his power and was actually putting up a fight. They were running out of time.

(Aelita can't help us anymore,) I shouted during the brief hiatus in the war. (She can't deactivate XANA. But if we can devirtualize William and send him back to our world we might be able to save the core.) My digital sword of light flickered blood red, flashing codes of data as it moved independently to protect me from the onslaught. Behind my wide glasses, my face reflected more calculation than it ever had on Lyoko before. Ulrich couldn't help wondering if this was the way I looked in my chair at the factory. He hadn't been sure how well I would respond to the stress of an actual attack, but we were both pleasantly surprised. I was almost as helpful on Lyoko as I was in the control room, even if I couldn't fight well enough to save my own life. Luckily for me, my weapon did most of the fighting.

"The last shield is about to break, you guys!" Odd's anxious desperation did nothing to assuage the weight pressing on us.

(Gotcha,) Ulrich muttered at me, and his body sped toward Yumi in a smudged stripe. (We've got to devirtualize William!) he roared, thrusting his body between William and the weakening shield of the core.

(Hyaa!!) Two fans buzzed past Ulrich's head, colliding with the mantas that encircled them. William, XANA's emblem imprinted on his forehead, rushed forward, swinging his cumbersome blade at Ulrich's vulnerable head. Ulrich ducked in time, but William's second swing hit him square in the chest and knocked him into the gorge below. As Ulrich fell, his body's substance dissolved into glowing, rudimentary wires. He watched the shrinking battle progress above him and silently prayed that Yumi would have more luck than him. Lyoko flickered away, and then there was white.

* * *

It took a few delicate moments for Yumi to realize what had happened. The instant she knew Ulrich was gone, a wave of panic hit her full-force. My shield had allowed me to survive the attack so far, but I obviously couldn't fight XANA. She would have to face William alone. William advanced toward her, and with a showy display of gymnastics she evaded his swings. As she fled from XANA she heard a heart-stopping percussion. The final shield had collapsed under the force of XANA's beasts, and the delicate sphere, the core that held the essence of Lyoko itself, hovered unprotected in the still air of the room.

Silence.

The tense quiet wasn't even broken by the furious beating of Yumi's heart. She could feel the panic, the thick lack of hope in the air around her, but here on Lyoko she had no heart to break, no ducts for tears, or nerves to soak up the cold. There was only the shadow of fear and the distinct absence of sound. Even the monsters had ceased their attack.

_XANA must know that he's won…_

Yumi and I could only stare helplessly up at William—XANA—as he rose in one motion on a dark cloud. The shadow carried him to the frail sphere, the fragile orb of light that shivered at his approach. William lifted his arms above his head, carrying the long blade up with him.

With one swing, XANA ended Lyoko's existence.

A terrible display of power erupted from the heart of Lyoko's dying core. Waves of energy swept over us, and William and XANA laughed a cold, victorious roar of glee. We watched in horror as Lyoko imploded into a formless, shapeless darkness that tore at the veins of the sector. The growing gulf greedily pulled William into its black mouth. Yumi shrieked his name, but William's consciousness had fled and his body was eaten by Lyoko's insatiable stomach.

(Yumi!) I shouted over the roar. (We've got to move!!)

But Yumi had become petrified in her spot, unmovable by anyone's means. The advancing, festering darkness prodded at me to take action, and, ignoring the sudden cries of my earth-bound friends that tore through the air, I swung my saber at Yumi. In the distance I could barely make out the vortex ripping at Lyoko's seams, standing like an omen where the core should have been. The weapon pierced her as the fiery, black nothingness ate our bodies. Before Yumi had time to react she had dissolved into white petals, leaving me smiling sadly in the vanishing world.

* * *

"Yumi?"

No response.

"_Jeremie?!_"

"Here, let me have it," Ulrich commanded, seizing the microphone from Odd's hand. "Yumi?! _Hello?!_" He shook his head and slammed his fist onto the arm of the chair. Aelita took control of the keyboard, looking much more calm than she had a few moments before. If she could just get into the system…but no. Lyoko was shutting down.

A cursory glance at the screen made Odd's heart stop. Errors clouded the monitors, the scans of Lyoko disintegrated. Aelita froze, her hands shaking uncontrollably with what might have been fear, or maybe it was sheer distress. The projection of Lyoko's map in front of them had vanished. Ulrich turned, and Odd saw in his eyes the same fear that was growing in his own heart.

"You don't think…"

Odd didn't give him time to finish the statement, but kicked himself out of the chair and ran to the corner of the room instead. Ulrich followed and ripped the lid from a passage, revealing a ladder that led through the ground and into the room below. Odd slid down the ladder first, wasting no time rushing toward the three scanners. The tall cylinders stood in an eerie darkness, closed and inactivated. Each had its own set of thick tubes and wires growing out of the top, snaking out of the room and through passages. Somewhere the wires led to the supercomputer, where they connected to Lyoko itself. These scanners were the portals between this world and their virtual universe. If Yumi, William, and I had survived, we should have arrived by now. Odd heard Ulrich's feet plod against the metal ground behind him, and silently the two friends stood beside each other. Odd stared at the pod in front of him, anxiously willing it to open and show him William or me or Yumi. He wanted to see his friends intact, safe. _Alive. _It was hard enough losing Lyoko…

He couldn't stand losing his friends.

"Come on, you guys," Ulrich moaned beside him. Suddenly there was a hiss, and a single scanner opened, casting a nimbus of steam and yellow light around the small room. Odd's heart danced around inside of him. He was terrified, but there was a sliver of relief disguised in his horror. One scanner. That meant…

Yumi emerged from the thick fog, the tears running heavily down her face. Odd's heart stopped. She burst into a run and flung herself into Ulrich's arms, burying her head in his shoulder. Her gasping sobs were the only sound to pierce the stillness of the room. Ulrich held her awkwardly for a moment before he wrapped his arms tightly around her, and Odd felt a sickening reality settle in the air. William and I were gone.

He would tell Aelita.


	3. I A Collision

Installment I

I.i ; A Collision

_Beep beep beep! _Odd moaned as sleep's grip slackened. _Bee-_ The abrasive noise faded away and he turned back into the warm cradle of his course sheets. Taking in a breath of musty air, he let himself drift back into the dreamless slumber**. **His eyelids fluttered and lights danced on the insides of his eyelids before his mind finally returned to a cool, dark sleep. Almost subconsciously, Odd felt the sheets slide off his body and onto the floor. He wouldn't have noticed—or cared, for that matter—if it hadn't been for the sudden loss of heat. Still half sleeping, Odd pulled himself up and sharply pointed a finger in the general direction of the offender. "Hey," he growled, "what's the big idea?" Though his eyes were open, the unfocused blob of Ulrich's head could have been anyone.

"Relax, genius," Ulrich's sarcastic voice murmured without smiling. He turned coolly to walk out the door of their shared room. "You just slept through the alarm again."

In an instant Odd was fully awake and on his feet, rummaging through the drawers beneath his bed.

"Great, just great," he grumbled as he pulled on a pair of dirty, purple pants. "Maybe if Ulrich wouldn't turn the alarm off so fast…" As his blonde head emerged from the neck of his shirt, he looked at the clock sitting across the room. The red square numbers read 8:23–no, 8:24. He was half an hour late. "Aw, man! Hey Ulrich, you don't think-" Odd glanced over his shoulder, but Ulrich had already left. Go figure. Pulling his hair into a spike and shoving his nosy dog aside, he grabbed his science book and tore off after Ulrich. It was going to be a long day.

Ulrich had already reached class by the time Odd would have caught up. Ulrich didn't seem to care whether or not he was late anymore, but Odd had to try. After he'd almost been held back, he'd been making more of an effort to do better in school.

They didn't exactly see each other much anymore. At least, not like Odd wished they could. Aside from the pain of living with each other, nothing else seemed to go on between them. Sure, Ulrich was a great friend–almost like a brother, really–but lately he'd seemed so detached and aloof. Sometimes it was hard to kid around Ulrich without him getting all defensive and snappy. At least Ulrich had Yumi. Odd wasn't entirely sure if they still saw each other, but he liked to imagine they did. That way Ulrich had an excuse for running off all the time.

Finally reaching the end of the hallway, Odd pulled himself into the classroom and discreetly slid into his desk. He busied himself with flipping through his textbook until he decided to risk a glance at Ms. Hertz. Confirming that she hadn't noticed a thing, Odd heaved a sigh of relief and reclined comfortably in the plastic chair. He looked around the classroom. The rest of the class was nearly silent, watching the blackboard with great interest. Strangely enough, even Sissi seemed to be paying attention. Odd tried to focus on the lesson, but, despite everyone else's apparent interest, he really didn't care about what was going on. Or maybe he just didn't understand Ms. Hertz's lecture.

He felt his eyes float around the room until they rested on an empty chair. _Jeremie's chair…_ He forced himself to look away and focused on the nearest person instead. His eyes fell on Aelita, who sat in her usual manner, relaxed and comfortable. The pink fur balls that dangled from her jumper danced on the table as her head bobbed delicately to some inaudible tune. He could just make out earphones peeking through her audacious pink hair. She sat like that every day, drowning out the world with music. It was like a security blanket or something. He didn't really know, but he _wanted _to. He _wanted _Aelita to talk to him again, to laugh with him, or even scold him. It was difficult to sit around and watch his "cousin" wallow in her despair, even if she denied the fact that she was so despondent.

"Aelita," came the teacher's voice, "I see your cousin finally decided to join us." Snickers fluttered around the desks as Odd's cheeks burst into flame. Doing his best to ignore the jaunts, he watched Aelita's stone-cold face stare blankly at the table, her head still bobbing. Sometimes he wondered if she even cared that the group was gone. _She probably does_. He forced the words into his head, just for the comfort of hearing them. _She just doesn't want to admit it… _It had been her idea to split up the group, but surely she regretted it by now. He had this perfect image of his friends etched into his mind; he remembered exactly what it was supposed to be like. This was just a sort of break, a hiatus to let them all cool down for a while. That's all it was...Aelita regretted it—she had to! She was still the same Aelita who had never hated or held grudges against any of her friends for long. She could never change. She would always be his fun-loving, adventuresome cousin from Canada.

Odd allowed his train of thought to settle on the real image presenting itself before him. There she sat, her green eyes empty, staring at nothing. It scared him to see Aelita like this. It wasn't the Aelita they'd rescued from the supercomputer, but something vacant of life and hope. Is this what would become of them? _No…she's still the same. It's just hard for her…_ He cared for her more than she probably knew. She wasn't his cousin, but she might as well have been. She was still family. They were all still family.

The bell rang so abruptly that it sent a jolt through his body, causing him to lose balance on his chair and crash to the ground. He hadn't noticed how far back he'd been leaning. Sissi jeered at him as she walked by, barely missing Odd's corresponding raspberry. Beaming with an air of satisfaction, Odd collected his single book and returned the chair to its upright position.

"Sheesh, Ms. Hertz has really lost it, huh?" Caitlin whispered as she passed him.

"Yeah, no kidding!" he exclaimed with a wild gesture. "I mean, it wasn't even my fault this time, either!"

"Oh really?" She snickered, tossing a dark strand of hair out of her face.

"Yeah." He scowled overdramatically, earning a giggle from Caitlin. "Ulrich turned off the alarm on me! That's a good excuse, right?"

"Good enough for me," she said, shrugging. "Hey, you're still coming to that movie tonight, aren't you?" Odd laughed.

"Of course! I wouldn't just jip or-"

"Well, you know…I just thought I'd ask." Caitlin's expression remained joking, but a softer, almost serious undertone developed in her face. "'Cause, you know, you used to just disappear all the time without even explaining or anything-"

"Don't worry," Odd interjected. "That's not gonna happen anymore." To break the silence that followed, he added, "Things are a little different now." As if that simple explanation had justified the change, Caitlin smiled and turned to walk out of the class.

"I'll see you at eight, then!" she called over her shoulder.

"Yeah," Odd returned. "See you then."

Was it a date? He amused himself by imagining it was. He did a lot of imagining lately. Just as he was walking out the door, something caught his attention. He turned around, and there was Aelita with her toe tapping and her head bobbing.

"Hey, Aelita?" It was quiet. Even Ms. Hertz had left the room. Through the stillness of the empty space he could make out a humming bass line. "The bell rang. Aelita…" He reached out and touched her gently on the shoulder. "C'mon! Geez, you can't seriously be–"

With a sharp "thwack" his hand was swatted away and Aelita was standing, facing Odd full front.

"I know."

Moments passed before Odd was able to shake himself out of the initial shock. _What…just happened? _Aelita's reverberating footsteps disappeared from the room, and Odd pulled through the trance to sprint after her. _Sh-she's crazy. Did she hit me? Did she seriously just _hit_ me?! _Just inside the next hall he found her walking, the white cord bouncing behind her ears.

"Hey!" He grabbed her shoulder hard this time and turned her around. "What are you doing? What-what's wrong with you?" Odd flinched as Aelita raised her hand, but her fingers merely plucked the buds out of her ears and folded them into her pocket.

"There's nothing wrong," she retorted matter-of-factly, twisting her shoulder out of his grip. "I'm fine. I don't know why you're so upset-"

"Look-" Odd was surprised at the sound of his voice. He hadn't meant to sound so angry. "Look," he started again, softer, "I know you're trying to act all tough or whatever, but I can tell you're not alright. You refuse to talk to Yumi, you never see Ulrich. I'm the only one who even talks to you anymore, but you treat me like a stranger! Last week you didn't say a word to me, not even at lunch! We're _cousins_, Aelita! _Cousins_. We're not supposed to hate each other or act all rude…" She was watching him wearily, hearing but not really listening. Odd took a breath and continued. "You're still upset about Jeremie and Lyoko and all, but you don't have to take it out on the rest of us! You think you're alone, but you're not! We loved Lyoko just as much as you, and Jeremie and William were our friends too! …Please, just…sto-"

"Lyoko was my _home._" A shadow passed over the girl's face, making Odd's blood run cold. "I spent _years _of my life on Lyoko! Jeremie and William weren't the only ones who died. My father died, my past died, my hope of EVER having a normal life on Earth DIED! There is no more 'us.' There's no more group; it's _over. Dead. _And we're _not actually_ related! Stop dreaming, move on, and _grow up_, Odd!"

Odd moaned as a dagger flew clean through his heart. Suddenly he found himself staring at a foreign being. Before him stood a shadow, an echo of Aelita, and he watched in horror as his old friend bled at his feet, spilling her essence from her veins until nothing but a hollow shell remained. His brow furrowed at the shell of Aelita, taking a sharp step away. As he physically distanced himself from her cold eyes, the last connection between them crumbled, leaving a chasm that Odd had no intention of attempting to cross again.

"Sorry, _princess_," he spat, almost relishing the infuriated look that passed over her face.

Hate, fury, _rage_ boiled through his veins, but instead of shouting affronts he found himself suppressing a choking sob. Aelita's mouth opened, forming silent words with her thin lips, but her mouth shut tightly and her eyes glistened with the soft sheen of brimming tears. In a heat, she turned and left Odd standing alone in the crowded hall.

As Aelita's form grew smaller, the finality of it all hit Odd with the force of a semi truck. He couldn't help but feel that this somehow signaled the end: the end of the group, the end of Lyoko, and the end of every friendship that had ever truly mattered. In this single moment, _everything_ hit an irrevocable closure. Someone had flung a boulder into his reality, and the shards of his former life glistened around him in infinitesimal slivers. He knew that nothing, no method or person or plea, would piece it together again. But even still, he had not lost his defiance and his heart had not lost its yearning for the deep-rooted friendships dying inside the broken picture of reality.

With a pitiable sigh he stood in the hall, a lone figure amidst the thinning crowd. He would try again. He had to. Odd watched Aelita until she disappeared, and just as she vanished from his sight he saw her hands reach up and force the earphones back into her head.


	4. Quiet Interlude

_Jeremie is the narrator through the entire story._

I.ii ; A Quiet Interlude

Flames feed on oxygen. Without it, a fire will die. Suffocate. Animals need oxygen as plants need the sun, and without that staple of life, death takes root among the living. The brightness, the vivacity of an open flame depends upon its staple to thrive. Without it, the energy, the light, and the warmth dissipate, like smoke vanishes into the air.

Yumi entered the room confidently, sparing only a moment to fake a glance into one of the several mirrors lined above the sinks. Her own dark, slanted eyes met her gaze momentarily. Her eyes glanced at her pale face framed by high-parted, pitch-dark hair before she tugged at the hem of her short, black shirt. It was clearly never meant to cover her slender stomach. Yumi turned toward the stalls and walked into the nearest vacant one, shutting the door firmly behind her, and with a click she was locked inside and settled on the seat of the toilet. With great patience—a skill she had been forced to develop after living with her aggravating little brother—she waited and listened to the other girls hurrying in and out of the room. Something about eyeliner, a boy's name, and other meaningless banter floated around the room until, one by one, the voices faded and the shuffling of feet stopped. Yumi let her lips slide into a grin, and she slipped on her backpack and kicked open her stall's door. As the door swung open, a sharp crash made Yumi freeze in place. The unmistakable form of Sissi was crouched on the tile floor of the bathroom, frantically scraping pieces of makeup from the cold ground. Yumi took a sharp step back and pushed the door closed again. The whole point of staying in there was to _avoid_ people. She didn't want to have to deal with anyone, _especially_ Sissi Delmas.

The moment Yumi settled on the toilet a second time, the bell shattered the air with its shrill noise. Through the crack of her stall, Yumi watched as Sissi threw her arms into the air in frustration. Yumi tried her best to stifle a giggle. For some reason, watching Sissi in this much pain was enjoyable. It was comforting to know that she wasn't the only one having a hard time.

When the sound of broken sobs brushed her ears, Yumi decided to emerge from her hiding place. The sobs continued even as she stepped into the open, and they didn't stop until Yumi's shadow covered the shaking girl. "You're late to class," Yumi started, from a lack of something better to say. Sissi wiped her hand over her wet eyes and looked back up at Yumi.

"So are you," Sissi retorted, climbing to her feet as if nothing had happened.

"Yeah, well…" Yumi leaned against the bathroom wall and smiled at Sissi. "I wasn't planning on going to class anyway. I hate French." Sissi suppressed a grin, quickly turning to look at her reflection in the mirror. She frowned at herself and pulled out some mascara, reapplying it where the tears had wiped it away.

"So…" Sissi dropped her hand to look back at Yumi. "You're not going back to class at all? Are you skipping class or something?" Yumi wanted to shout 'duh,' but instead she smiled and nodded softly.

"Why not? Ulrich and I used to skip all the time." Yumi winced as his name left her lips. What on earth had prompted her to say that? Sissi's face had probably just stirred up the old memories. That's all it was, she assured herself. "What about you?" Yumi returned politely. "Surely the principal's daughter wouldn't be caught dead playing hooky!"

"I wasn't planning on going to class anyway," Sissi quipped, mimicking Yumi's words. "I hate math." Yumi forced the corners of her lips to pull up into a grin, but she knew that the smile looked just as shallow as it felt. Inside she moaned, reluctantly kissing her alleged "alone time" good-bye.

"Great," Yumi retorted sarcastically, sounding far more like she felt. "Just _great_."

:

Yumi had seriously considered returning to class as a welcome alternative to spending an hour with Sissi, but after a while Yumi had to admit that this was not as terrible as she had imagined it would be. They had taken a seat near one of the walls, and Sissi had made herself more than comfortable by spreading her purse's contents all over the floor around them. Yumi winced as Sissi's brush assaulted her scalp once more. Yumi strained herself to glance into the mirror, but she couldn't see how Sissi had scooped up her hair.

"Can you even imagine?" Sissi continued, "The nerve of that Herb…really!"

"No," Yumi smiled. "I really can't."

"Well it's a good thing my Ulrich will always love me," Sissi said. The pain of the next brush stroke paled in comparison to the sudden white pain of those words. "Does he talk about me a lot?" Yumi tried to twist out of Sissi's fingers, but Sissi had a tight hold on Yumi's black locks. Yumi sighed and folded her legs beneath her body.

"I don't see him anymore," said Yumi. "You'd be better off talking to him yourself."

"What do you _mean_ you don't see each other anymore?" Sissi demanded, pausing in her work. "You guys were like…_always_ together."

"Look," Yumi said, "We just don't hang out anymore. Actually, I don't hang out with-"

"Oh, _I _get it!" Sissi shouted excitedly. "You're with _William_ now, aren't you?"

"No!" Yumi interjected quickly. "I'm not with anybody! I'm not with William or Ulrich or-"

"Whatever happened to William, huh?" Sissi inquired lightly, smiting Yumi with a stinging question. "Jeremie's been gone a long time too...What'd you do, kidnap them?" What should she say? Yumi held her breath as she collected her thoughts.

"They..." she began, desperately trying to recall the excuse they had decided on. "They're traveling America together. Their families know each other, so they just...went together...at the same time..." Yumi waited for a response from Sissi, but the dope continued the conversation without second-guessing Yumi's story. As Yumi settled down and forced the blush from her cheeks, she could feel Sissi staring into the back of her head.

"So…you don't even see each other?" Sissi wondered, reverting to the subject of Ulrich. "Like…at all?" Yumi nodded her head, thankful that Sissi couldn't see her face. She felt a pressing silence behind her, and then Sissi laughed. "I guess that makes two of us," Sissi said. "Ulrich needs to start paying us some attention, huh?"

"Yeah," Yumi laughed along, half-heartedly. "But really…I don't think I'd be sad if I never had to talk to him again."

"Why? What happened?" Sissi inquired. "Did you guys fight?"

"Sissi, we were never actually 'together.' You make it sound like we were dating or something."

"That's what I always thought," Sissi whispered. "But oh well…Hey, you didn't answer my question!" Yumi smiled, feeling a little disappointed that Sissi had caught her subtle aversion.

"I don't want to talk about it," Yumi answered honestly. "It wasn't really a fight…between _us_. More like a fight in our whole group. It would just be really awkward if I saw him again. That's all."

"You still have classes though, don't you?" Sissi said. "You can't never see him again."

"Why do you think I'm skipping class?" Yumi laughed sadly. "I'm in a different grade, anyway. We don't have many classes togeth—OW! What are you _doing_?!" she growled, stroking her head.

"You'll find out soon enough," Sissi snorted. "Just be patient!" A long silence followed the conversation, but Yumi couldn't think. It was a comfortable silence, quite unlike the silence that would have enveloped them in any other situation. It was thoughtful, and though neither spoke, each knew what the other thought, and they sat that way, contented, until Sissi had finished her work. She handed Yumi a compact, flashing the mirror at her face. Yumi took it into her hands and peered at the face staring back. Her hair was pulled tight into an up-do, and the curled, black locks framed her cheeks with perfect compliments. "It was the best I could do," Sissi said. "Your hair is a lot shorter than mine, and I hardly ever do anyone else's."

"It looks great," Yumi said, standing to gaze into the full mirrors. She took time to drink in the full effect, running her eyes over the smallest details. It almost astonished her. She'd never imagined her hair could be molded so…flatteringly. "Thanks," she said genuinely. "I never knew my hair could...look so good." Yumi laughed, and Sissi smiled.

"No problem," Sissi said with a wave of her hand. "Making peolpe look good is what I do best. Especially when that person is _me_."

Yumi laughed. She almost couldn't tell if Sissi had been joking, or if she was seriously that conceited, but it was just like Sissi to speak like that, so Yumi disregarded it. Sissi had somehow managed to kindle something inside Yumi, and it made her forget everything Sissi had put her through in the past. It was a disappointment when the bell rang over their heads.

It was a moment before either of them dared to move. The exchange had somehow taken them outside of reality for that single hour, and the sharp jolt of the grating bell reminded Yumi that outside of the bathroom's walls, she and Sissi were what could easily have been described as "mortal enemies." She knew that whatever friendship they had made in here wouldn't last long out there.

"I'd better get going," Yumi said at length. "I should probably _go _to my next class."

"Yeah," Sissi said quietly. "At least we don't have school this afternoon…" The growing rumble of a crowd of students soon filled the silence, and Yumi turned to leave.

"Hey, Yumi?" Yumi turned and met Sissi's quieted gaze. "Do you think Ulrich really likes me?" Yumi paused for a moment, taking in the question. She knew that Ulrich had never liked Sissi…but Ulrich was the kind of guy that was nice to everyone, no matter what a person was like. She could see Ulrich in the elevator with Sissi, tending to her with care. She remembered with stinging vividness the kiss, Sissi's endless blackmail, and finally she thought of Lyoko. Sissi had almost been a part of it. Sissi was irksome and arrogant, but they were always nice to her, to some degree. Secretive, yes, but nice.

Ulrich had never loved her. She knew that with certainty; his heart had always belonged to Yumi. Hadn't it? No matter how Sissi blackmailed him or forced him into a relationship, even Sissi knew that anything between them had been shallow. Had Yumi ever been the iron vice that held Ulrich's heart? She wasn't so sure anymore, but as far as Sissi was concerned, the only thing keeping Ulrich from Sissi was standing right here. Luckily for Sissi, that was the past.

"Maybe," Yumi said. "Everything seems possible now."

Yumi left the tiled room and dove into the security of the crowd of students. If she never saw Sissi again, she'd be content. Then, contentment was something she had learned to live without.

Yumi never saw him coming. It was fate's sense of humor that thrust him into her path before she had time to react. Her book flew at the ground as their bodies collided, but she couldn't draw her eyes away from Ulrich's to even glance at the fallen thing. The cruelty of fate allowed only his arms to keep her from falling, and forced her chest against his. His lips tightened, and her heart forgot to beat. The time passed quickly, but the time had been too long before their bodies parted. Ulrich shoved his hands into his pockets, and Yumi saw a bit of color flash into his cheeks.

"Hi." His voice sounded like a whisper.

"Hey," she managed to breathe.

"Nice hair," he said, smiling. He started to lift his hand, but it remained anchored to his side. He knelt and picked up her book instead, but Yumi couldn't move. She couldn't speak or think. She could hardly breathe. Ulrich placed the book into her hand, and as his hand brushed her fingers she breathed.

She couldn't move. She didn't want to move.

Ulrich's smile faded at her unresponsiveness, and, before she could stop, him he turned and walked away. He shoved his hands deep into his pockets, but the crowd was too thick to watch him go. Yumi cursed herself silently.

Her flame quickly began to suffocate.


	5. The Best Thing

I.iii ; The Best Thing

Ulrich had only spent five minutes in the history class when the sleep had settled in his eyes. He soon nodded off. Ten minutes of refreshing sleep ensued before he was jolted back into reality by the sharp slap of a ruler by his ear.

"Ulrich Stern, would you _like_ another detention?" the teacher scolded.

"No, ma'am," he murmured, looking as nonchalant as he felt. She snorted and returned to her lecture, holding up a globe for emphasis.

"Now, France, Great Britain, and Russia formed the _Triple Entente_," she continued, "which was a less binding agreement than the Triple Alliance. They said that they would aid each other if attacked. It was formed in response to Germany's expansion…" Ulrich had quickly tuned out the discussion, but he knew he couldn't leave himself to his own thoughts. Thoughts have a funny way of fluttering in when they aren't wanted, and left to his musings he knew unwelcome thoughts would wriggle to the front of his mind.

When tapping his pencil failed to capture his attention, he took to scribbling on his "notes." The flowing lines connected on the paper, forming an indistinguishable mass of amorphous shapes. Somewhere in the scrawled jumble a dog appeared, so he elaborated on the distraction until a crudely drawn Kiwi barked up at him from the page. He smiled with satisfaction and glanced over his shoulder at the owner of his ugly scribble. Odd had taken a seat closer to the back of the room, with his elbows on the table and his hands cradling his head. He was staring down at the table, but Ulrich couldn't tell whether his roommate was spacing out or deep in thought. He immediately eradicated the latter option and came to the sound conclusion that history bored Odd as much as it bored him.

Ulrich smiled softly and forced his eyes to watch the teacher. Normally—no, not _normally_…not anymore. _In the past_—he would have slept or passed little messages all period, but he could no longer rely on my notes to keep a passing grade. He would have to do that himself now.

It didn't take long for Ulrich to lose all interest. He was glad there weren't any classes that afternoon; he wasn't sure how much more of this he could take. He really needed to get some more sleep. Something purple caught his attention out of the corner of his eye, and as he glanced to his right he was shocked to find Odd had occupied the empty seat beside him. He cried out and quickly slapped his hands over his mouth.

"_Ulrich!_" the teacher groaned at him.

"Sorry," he snapped, slicing through the air with the sharp edge in his voice. The instant the teacher had turned her back, Ulrich whirled around to face Odd, his face hardened into a scowl. "What are you doing?" he whispered, frowning. "Do you _want_ me to get in-"

"We've got to get the group back together," Odd interrupted, a serious expression glued to his face. Ulrich almost burst out laughing, but there was a certain look in Odd's eyes--a look that he'd only seen a few times before. Odd was entirely serious. Ulrich sighed and leaned into his chair, folding his arms over his chest.

It was a tempting notion, and certainly an idea that had occupied his thoughts for the last two months. He had to admit that without his friends life had become much more boring. That was a selfish thought, but even more than that, he missed the gang. His heart ached every time Yumi passed him in the halls, and though he lived with Odd, Ulrich had made a point to avoid spending time alone with him. Being with Odd, seeing his ridiculous hair every day, reminded him of the ridiculous Lyoko cat that had inspired the 'do. Silent exchanges with Aelita in the hall reminded him of how fresh the wounds were. They hadn't even told my parents yet…and here they put on masks every day, forcing themselves to wear their faces like the world was full of sunshine and rainbows. He knew that reforming would only rip the wounds open more, and right now he only wanted to forget.

Finally, Ulrich said, "We can't. There's no way Aelita would go for that," he added, using Aelita as a justification for his own egocentric reasons. Odd moaned and leaned forward.

"Why not?" Odd almost pleaded. "The only reason we split up was because Aelita had this stupid idea that we'd be safer alone. XANA hasn't made a sound for two months! If he was going to attack us he would have-"

"It's not just that, Odd," Ulrich snorted, the volume of his voice growing. "It's…it's a lot more complicated than that." He looked away from his friend, locking his eyes onto the back of a student's head. "We both know that excuse was ridiculous. If anything, we'd be easier targets alone. Aelita just doesn't want to…_I_ don't want to have to…" He groaned, searching for the words to articulate the conflict. "It's just complicated."

"Oh really, huh?" Odd frowned. "I betcha Yumi wouldn't mind getting back-"

"Have you even talked to Aelita?" Ulrich blurted, irritated.

"No," Odd glowered. "Have you talked to Yumi?"

"No," Ulrich answered too quickly, looking away sharply.

The familiar slap of a ruler took all of their attention away from the argument.

"_Boys!_" Clearly pushed to the breaking point, the teacher snapped her finger toward the door of the classroom. "Principal's office," she stated blatantly. "Now."

"Way to go, Odd," Ulrich growled beneath his breath as he shoved his books into his bag and slung it over his shoulder. They stood in unison and trudged out of the class.

"Hey, it's not _my_ fault you talk loud," Odd quipped. They rounded the corner of the hall and left the building, stepping onto the campus. Ulrich shoved his hands into his pockets and turned left, realizing a few moments later that his partner in crime had turned the opposite direction. Ulrich whirled around and rolled his eyes when he saw Odd running toward the other building. This was just like Odd, running off and disobeying all the time. At least _something_ hadn't changed.

"What are you doing?" Ulrich inquired calmly after he'd caught up.

"I'm going to go find Aelita," he replied, his focus never leaving the building in front of him. "I want to know why she made us split up."

"Odd…" Ulrich stepped in front of his roommate and friend, forcing him to stop. "She didn't _make_ us split apart. We did that ourselves." Odd's hands tightened into fists as he stared up at Ulrich. "She told us we should, but no one disagreed. This would've happened even if Aelita hadn't said anything. We just sort of fell apart on our own."

"No," said Odd, "this is all her fault. This whole stupid thing is Aelita's fault." His eyes narrowed. "I want to know why she made us split up." Odd pushed past Ulrich and shoved the door open.

"Oh, come _on_," Ulrich moaned again, following him closely. "You can't blame this on Aelita. She's just really crushed after…well, you know…"

"Well if she hadn't gotten devirtualized in the first place, we would've been able to stop XANA," Odd spat.

"Maybe you should've done a better job of protecting her," Ulrich retorted angrily. "It was our job to keep her safe, so maybe it's our fault all that our friends are dead." His voice cracked, but he forced the lump out of his throat and retained as much of an apathetic air as he possibly could. "Stop throwing the blame everywhere else. You've been such a jerk lately."

Odd stopped and faced Ulrich, pain crawling across his face. Odd had always been the clown, but now the tables had all been turned. Nothing was the same anymore.

"Talk to Aelita if you want, but I'm not going to have any part of this," Ulrich said firmly, sticking his hands inside his pockets again. "Maybe…" Ulrich paused. "Maybe you should just leave well enough alone. This isn't so bad. Maybe this is the best thing."

"The _best_ thing," said Odd, "is getting everything back to normal."

Normal? What was normal anymore?! The normality of their lives wasn't even the normality dictated by normal society. Their lives had been a routine sweep of _abnormal_ events, and only the routine had made it seem natural. Odd wanted normal? This--where they were right now--_this_ was about as "normal" as they would ever get. Odd followed the hall to Aelita's classroom.

"Nothing is EVER going to be 'normal' again!" Ulrich cried after him angrily. He turned around and began to walk, hotly fishing his notes out of his bag as he prepared to return to class. He stared down at his incomplete sentences and found that ugly dog staring back up at him. Ulrich ripped the page from his notebook and wadded it into a tight ball. He couldn't go back to class anyway, he realized shortly--he was _supposed_ to be in the principal's office.

On his way to the cafeteria he tossed the wad into the trash where it belonged.


	6. Let It All Out

_Thank you to everyone who has read this! 400 hits...Thanks! I would love some more reviews, though... :)_

_Keep in mind that Jeremie is the narrator. Otherwise, you may get confused near the end._

_As always, I don't own anything but the plot._

I.iv ; Let It All Out

The bell couldn't have rung any sooner. Aelita stood abruptly and stalked out of her stolid class, wasting as little time as possible. All she wanted now was the peace and unadulterated quiet of her room. After lunch, their classes for the day would be finished. It was an increasingly more frequent occurrence nowadays, and Aelita wasn't about to start complaining. School in smaller doses was much easier to handle.

Her heart took a gargantuan nosedive when she spotted the small form of her purple-clad cousin waiting for her at the end of the hall. She sucked in a lungful of air and immediately changed directions. He'd obviously seen her, but she faked ignorance to his presence and continued without looking back.

"Oh, please no…" she pleaded under her breath. "Please just leave me alone…"

But her prayers went unanswered, and soon she could hear him pushing his way through the students at her back. Aelita quickened her pace as her pulse quickened in her chest.

"Aelita, wait!" Odd cried from behind her. Aelita continued moving, paying no heed to his voice. Was that anger in his voice? She felt her face frown but refused to look back at him, locking her gaze onto her shoes instead.

Aelita looked up in time to stop herself from colliding with the stubborn jokester. Odd could be fast if he wanted to be, she remembered with disdain. She folded her arms and stared him straight in the eyes, her heart pounding loudly in her ears.

"What?" she commanded, acknowledging his presence for the first time. Aelita could feel his eyes burn into her own, but she couldn't bring herself to pull out of his steady gaze. She could tell he was angry from the way he stood, the way his brows were knit.

"Why did you make us split up?" he asked blatantly. Odd never beat around the bush, did he?

"What are you talking about?" Aelita breathed, feeling the blood run hot through her face.

"Just that—why did you make us split up, huh?" His brows furrowed more. "What happens if XANA comes back?"

"If XANA comes back," Aelita said, more to herself than the impatient boy, "he'll have to deal with _me_."

"You don't get it," said Odd impatiently. "When I came to Kadic Academy you guys were the first ones I met. You're the only friends I've got! Now what am I-"

"I don't care, Odd," Aelita declared. "I really don't." She couldn't care; she didn't care. Aelita's apathy kept her sane, and she couldn't afford to lose it. Odd could crawl under a rock and _die_ for all it mattered, as long as she would finally be rid of him. How could so many people could believe the lie they lived every single day? Aelita Stones and Odd Della-Robbia were nothing alike! The only thing they had in common was their bizarre hair, but that was hardly something that confirmed any sort of relation. At least Aelita's hair was naturally pink—a purple patch in otherwise blonde hair is hardly a trait anyone can be born with.

"That's the thing!" Odd shouted with such sudden vivacity that it caught Aelita off guard. "Aelita, you're supposed to care! You're our friend!" It was so strange to see his face light up on so somber a subject. Sometimes it was almost impossible for Aelita to follow the trains of thought that led Odd to the places he ended up. "Do you even _care_ that Jeremie's dead?!"

Aelita's heart stopped, and coldness swept through the veins of her body, seeping into every inch of her flesh.

The back of her hand connected to Odd's face with such force that her hand trembled with the red pain of the impact.

"You have NO idea what I feel," Aelita whimpered with fierce hatred. "You have NO idea what I'm going through! Stop pretending that you understand!"

"Aelita…" Odd whispered, rubbing his red cheek gingerly. "You're not the only one who feels…like the only one. We're all going through the same thing."

"No," Aelita said forcefully. "It's not the same at all."

With that, she took off running toward the forest. Aelita charged down the steps of the building, pushing up dirt with her heels as she ran. The walls she had so carefully built up over the last few months were being beaten down by that ridiculous Odd, and defenseless she could not stand before him. As she ran, tears began to drool out of her eyes.

In the safety of the sheltering leaves outside of campus, Aelita allowed herself to finally break down. She buried herself in a crackling pile of dead leaves and sobbed for the first time since Lyoko's death, but her displayed despondency couldn't relieve the grief that ate at her dead heart.

I had really meant the world to her. I was her clichéd "knight in shining armor," the brave boy who had rescued her from her tower prison. If I hadn't stumbled on her, she would have slept for many more years in the supercomputer. If I hadn't convinced her to leave the safety of her confined space, she wouldn't have discovered her kingdom. If I hadn't fallen in love with her, befriended her, and cared about her, she would have been sacrificed to destroy XANA years ago. But I wouldn't allow that—without Aelita safe on their physical plane, the supercomputer would never return to its stasis. Thus the Lyoko Warriors had been born, with the sole purpose of protecting Aelita until we could bring her to Earth.

I was more than her hero—I was her savior. I was her love, her life.

Without that, without me feeding her hope, without the possibility of resurrecting her old life, without _Lyoko_, she was nothing. There wasn't much else for her to live for. Aelita didn't have a home, didn't have family. She had only her intellect and her harmful emotions keeping her up all night, keeping her from sleeping and concentrating. Music tuned it all out. Music drowned out the busy world with poetry and smooth, glassy sound. It settled her thoughts, kept them buried in her dead heart where they belonged. As long as the feelings were barred from her mind, from the surface…things would work out. Being human was easy to figure out.

A squirrel rustled in the dead leaves behind her. The bleak nimbus of rain in the air reflected the misery that overwhelmed her, and Aelita couldn't stop trembling. She laughed through her tears as her mind sailed on an indescribable high, feeding off her expression and forcing madness into her heart. She laughed and cried, then she cried and laughed, and Aelita continued with the lunacy until she couldn't breathe. And even then she couldn't stop, for her life. The saline tears crusted on her cheek long after her ducts had run dry, but she continued to sob through her dry voice, and little choking giggles broke through the dismal sound like hiccups. It was a wonder she managed to survive.

At length she ran out of energy and laid down on her back, panting to catch up to her lost breath. Her mind drifted back to Earth, and she found herself in an emotional rut. Her heart ached for hope, for a glimpse of sun, but her mind offered no assurance. The sun refused to shine. Aelita was almost relieved I wasn't around to see her like this.

She ran her fingers through her short, pink hair and watched the clouds float aimlessly by. She imagined that she saw a rabbit among them, and then she imagined me beside her. On Lyoko, with its keys, could she have found me? Unlocked me from my tomb? Could she have rescued me like I'd rescued her? It didn't matter now. Lyoko was gone.

* * *

Little light relieved the darkness, but the thin beams that did light on the walls revealed an abandoned world, or, to describe it more accurately, an abandoned factory. The equipment loomed in the darkness, reflecting the fragments of white light that leaked into the space. The unused machinery now held only the homes of little spiders where pulses of electricity—life—had once coursed through the wiry veins. Despite the lack of life, life seemed to thrive.

The dead computer sat like a ghost, merely echoing its former glory. Beneath the computer, three scanners stood like towers, mirroring Lyoko's towers that had once existed inside the computer's heart. Once portals into another world, these towers were dead.

A fractured microphone littered the ground by the mainframe, suggesting that users really had existed. This other world seemed alien, but here was proof that the lifeless machines belonged to Earth. If more proof was needed, then a glance at the black screen confirmed the suspicions.

The black screen popped, and a thin crackling static replaced the silence. A thin line appeared on the screen and blinked once. Then it blinked again, and then a third time. At once it ran across the screen, leaving words and numbers in its wake. A jolt of electricity from the new life ran through the tomb, into a cord and through the walls. A wire led the current into the basement, where the energy was fed into one of the solemn towers. The solemnity was broken by a hiss of life, and as the lights flickered on and the mainframe whirred to life, the tower-like scanner opened. Steam clouded what had been a tomb only moments before.


	7. II Moments

_Here begins the second installment—"Moments". The first installment "A Collision" moved a little slower, but from here things will begin to pick up. Reviews are the food that motivates my soul. Thank you all for your support! 1,000+ hits, I can hardly believe it!_

_PS, you may have noticed that I had this one up, and then took it down. That's because I realized how cruddy this chapter was, and I really, really wanted to redeem myself by taking it down and fixing the end. _

II.iii ; "Moments"

The clamor of the cafeteria rose with such volume that it nearly drowned the swarming, lingering thoughts in Yumi's head.

Nearly.

Yumi took a seat in the center of the room, the heart of the noise, and sat alone with her tray. She picked up her fork in her hands, shifting it between her fingers with careful thought. Ulrich must hate her. Why wouldn't he? The fork dove into her mashed potatoes—if you could even call them "potatoes"—and arranged the sloppy goop into what appeared to be a volcano. Of course, Ulrich had probably always hated her, Yumi told herself. If that was true, then why did this hurt so much? Anything that had made Yumi and Ulrich close was a thing of the past, pushed away into the dark cabins of her mind. There they were and there they would remain whimsical memories to make little moments like these easier to pass.

That's what this was: whimsical, comical. Their relationship was nothing serious because nothing serious had come from it. Years from now Yumi would sit quietly and laugh at the thought of their near-death experiences, the times Ulrich had saved her and the times she had saved him. She would laugh at the time they had almost been scorched alive, trapped inside that oven. As the temperature rose, they sat with their backs against each other's, panting through the sticky, hot air as the space became a desert, boiling sands as the salty beads of sweat snaked over their bodies and vanished with the sweltering heat. Ulrich pulled his shirt over his head, and the momentary relief swept over him as she silently tolerated the unbearable warmth of her turtleneck. The black clothes stuck to her as her heart began to race through the heat waves. And Ulrich let her take it off, relieve her suffocating skin, and in silence they sat, without even glancing at—

Yumi blinked.

This isn't what she wanted. That fire had burned out of her heart. She needed a new flame to warm her heart, or...maybe she just needed to remove the old one. She looked up and chanced briefly to meet Ulrich's gaze, but whatever motive he had felt to sit with her had vanished. Ulrich continued past her, but she didn't follow his gait to see where he sat. Yumi tried not to care about him anymore.

Odd caught her peripheral vision—that daring purple was hard to miss. He too seemed to watch Ulrich pass, but Odd clearly had other things on his mind. He watched the window, looking out into the woods and scanning the cafeteria. His search became a perpetual motion, a pattern of looking this way, then that, in endless shifting. Who was he looking for? Yumi slouched a little; if his eyes were searching for _her_, hopefully he wouldn't be successful. Discreetly, she scanned the room and missed the pink head of Aelita. Aelita was probably in her room again, Yumi mused. Aelita usually took to herself—though Yumi never saw her much, anyway.

The volcano of potatoes on her plate had erupted, and the Pompeii of peas below was washed over by the fiery lava of gravy. The citizens of that pitiable city had had little chance for survival, Yumi recalled, and she imagined the peas frozen in their games, their work, and their torment forever—for _eternity_. It was a sickening thought. Yumi abandoned her peas and picked up the tray. She crossed the boisterous tables, the friends at play. Neither smiling faces nor dismal frowns regarded her movement, except for a single pair of eyes that burned into her back. Without stopping, she and her tray made their way onto the campus.

Outside the air was cleaner, less stifling. Yumi breathed deeply as she sat on the stairs, sucking in the smell of approaching rain. The scent of rain, the scent of heavy clouds and wet soil, intoxicated her. It hadn't rained at Kadic for a long time. The sky was overdue to let out its weight.

A sudden chill swept through her, and she wished—though it pained her to admit that her mother was right—that she owned a sweater that _fit_ her. She let go of her forgotten food and wrapped her arms around her bare stomach, shivering slightly. Though for November, it was still strangely warm.

Movement caught her eye in the distance—in the woods. That same direction, she remembered with pain, led to the factory. It had been months since she'd been there, but Lyoko was a thing of the past. Yumi didn't miss the factory nearly as much as she missed her… Well, it didn't matter. One moment later, Yumi glanced up at the movement, and at once her heart snapped. For one moment, Yumi died.

She recognized his tall gait at first, though his once arrogant, princely manner had become something more stumbling and disoriented. Confused. When his body came into view, she saw his jeans and dark shirt—the red sleeves stood out like a light in the dark—and, before she could even make out the dark, messy hair, she knew without a doubt that William was walking toward her. It was either William, or it was an apparition. William could easily be an image produced by her own mind, a cruel trick of shadows and light. It could just as easily be XANA.

But then, William's bearing lacked the cool calculation of that viral program. William appeared far too imperfect. He looked almost lost, but then his eyes fell on Yumi, whose heart cracked and broke on the spot. His meandering stumble became a sprinting jog, and in one motion Yumi stood and broke into a run, for fear, it seemed, that if she dawdled he would somehow disappear. He slowed as she approached, but Yumi threw her body at his, wrapping her arms over his shoulders and nearly knocking him over with her haste.

"I can't believe it's you," she exclaimed through tears. "I can't believe you're…alive!"

"Nice to see you too," William muttered dazedly, not wasting the opportunity to close his arms around her waist—an action that Yumi had no intention of stopping; it was a sign that William had not changed a bit. Yumi could feel tears tickling at her eyes, but, for once, she didn't try to stop their fall. William held her at arms' length when he felt her body shake with sobs, and she looked into his eyes. They were clear and dark, deep but unsettled. No crackle of XANA sparked into his face. It really was William. If there was any doubt before, it was eradicated in that instant.

"What…what happened?" Yumi inquired suddenly, wiping her eyes with the back of her sleeve. She had spent an age wallowing in the ethereal guilt and sadness surounding his death. And, of course, once she had finally settled into the idea, accepted the idea, even tried to move _past_ the idea that her friends were gone, here was William. Her William, unscathed, untainted, _alive_, and...

"What do you mean?" William cocked his head, like a puppy almost. "You mean like…with the Scyphozoa? Beats me."

...and suffering from amnesia? Yumi's smile quickly faded.

"You…" Yumi looked long and hard at William's face, mystified. How could he not remember? He had been killed! XANA had consumed his body—she had seen it with her own eyes!—and Lyoko, their beautiful computer realm, their escape from reality, their escape _into_ reality, had imploded into utter nothingness. And William had gone with it...hadn't he? "We all thought you were gone. Dead along with XANA and—"

"Has it been that long?" William laughed, but after a second he perceived the gravity in her face and forced his smile away. "Wait, how long have I been gone?"

"It's been a few months!" Yumi cried, letting her composure slip away. William's face hardened like a rock. "Lyoko is completely destroyed…You—and Jeremie!—we lost you both." William still seemed baffled, and it was a few minutes before she could bring him to fully understand. She couldn't describe the entire encounter to him without breaking into little hiccup-sobs of renewed fear and grief, but she made it through, watching his face all the while. She was especially careful to scrutinize his countenance. She was infinitely relieved whenWilliam's personality didn't waver, and XANA never broke through.

After Yumi finished, they sat in heavy silence. William looked away from Yumi and fixed his gaze onto the grass. He'd been gone for months! He felt suddenly violated. A few months had been stolen out of his life, ripped from his memory—a few months that, according to Yumi, he had spent _dead_. Or nonexistant. Or in some sort of hypersleep, buried on the lifeless drive of the supercomputer. He shuddered at the solemnity of the idea.

At length, he spoke.

"I don't remember anything," he said at last, afraid to look into her eyes. "It's like I was taken by XANA just five minutes ago… I-I don't know what to say." Yumi hesitated a moment before pulling him into a hug.

"You don't have to say anything…It doesn't matter. I'm just…so glad you're alive."

As they embraced, Yumi couldn't stop a fear from appearing in the back of her mind. William was gone because Lyoko was gone. If William was here… Yumi shivered, but, as far as William was concerned, it was simply because of the cold.


	8. Standing Still

_So many hits! I'm flabbergasted. Thanks to those who reviewed! Keep in mind that Jeremie is the narrator._

II.ii ; Standing Still

Ulrich watched Yumi until she disappeared from sight. Once she had gone from the cafeteria, he swallowed the rest of his meal and took off for the dorms. He hadn't been very hungry, anyway, and his classes for the day were over. That was _one_ convenient thing about this inconvenient day.

The halls were deserted inside the building, so he took his time passing the endless doors. With each step he regretted this decision more and more, and eventually he stopped. Even in his own room he couldn't relax, for the notion of his silly, inconsiderate roommate, and, because peace was really the only thing he wanted, Ulrich pressed his back against the wall and slid to the floor right there in the hall. With one knee up and the other leg sprawled out in front of him, he watched the door before him with no particular interest. A few moments passed before the dark number on the grain of the door resurrected his memory, and at once he recognized it. It was my room.

An idea taunted Ulrich as he sat there, and finally he decided to acknowledge it. He stood and walked to the door, trying the handle. It was locked, but Ulrich slipped a few paperclips from his pocket with a sly grin. In little time at all, the door relinquished itself to him. Ulrich opened the door slowly, and my room presented itself with a thick wave of nostalgia. Everything was the same, preserved in this glued state since the day the world ended. There was Einstein peering down at Ulrich, warily following him as he fully entered the room, and there was my desk, organized chaos with a plethora of electronics and disks. Even my laptop was there, plugged into the wall. I was the only thing missing. Ulrich felt the weight of the room suffocate him—it was almost stuffy, but there was still a clarity in the air that made the heavy aura bearable. Ulrich ran his fingers along the keyboard, hovering them over the laptop next. Ulrich frowned. The laptop chirped loudly and blinked furiously. Ulrich removed the cord and carried the hardware to my bed, where he sat and reclined against the wall. He flipped open the cover and gazed at the screen.

Several windows popped up immediately, but Ulrich couldn't understand the messages they tried so desperately to convey. He glanced at them all hastily, but he knew it was no use trying to discern their implications. He shut the cover and pushed the computer to the side, and then he collapsed in the bed. This was the quiet he wanted—the stillness of my dorm room would never be disturbed, except by the frustrating murmurs of the laptop. It must be the battery or something, he told himself. Ulrich crushed the little computer under a pillow, and the muffled noise subsided. Ulrich smiled in smug satisfaction and closed his eyes. At last he'd found a sanctuary, a refuge from—

Ulrich frowned suddenly as a ruckus shattered the solitude. Voices—_familiar_ voices, he thought dismally—leaked through the window above the desk. Ulrich rose slowly and tuned his ears to the noise, focusing his energy on distinguishing the words, but he could only identify (almost immediately) the whiny voice of Odd. Ulrich would have shrugged it off, but for the fact that he heard one particular voice...a voice that sounded so familiar and, at the same time, distant.

Curiosity prodded him to move to the window, and as he reached the frame and gazed down into the yard, he saw Odd—of course, he had expected that—Yumi, and... He rubbed the sleep from his eyes, just to make certain he was seeing it clearly. William! Ulrich blinked several times, but every time he opened his eyes, there William stood, a real, tangible ghost lighting on the grass beside his two friends.

"Oh...my God!" Ulrich muttered to himself, the excitement accelerating his pulse. "William's alive!" He staggered back and tore out of my still room, and his feet carried him fast through the halls, down the stairs, and ever forward to meet the phantom. Seeing William had shocked his body out if its state of wearied apathy, but as soon as Ulrich reached the glass door he froze.

On his side of the door, Ulrich pressed his hands against the glass, slowly touching his forehead to the cool panel. On the other side of the thin barricade, Yumi clung to William as if her life had depended on their contact, and William's arm seemed to be glued to Yumi's waist. Ulrich's excitement drowned suddenly, and he let his forehead leave the glass's surface. He watched with bleak resentment as they talked and laughed, and, though the world had come alive in their free bubble outside, Ulrich became locked inside his own world.

He realized with sudden misery that he had become the third wheel—no longer the object of Yumi's adoration, but the jealous boy for whom Yumi had little concern. This had been common knowledge for some time, but Ulrich had never really accepted it as truth until this instant. Ulrich let himself step away from the door, and he glanced back at their happy reunion once more before returning silently to my stagnant room.

Stepping once again into the time warp, Ulrich shut the door hard and fast behind him. In silent, forceful frustration, he threw the nearest chair askew, and tossed my laptop hard against the floor. Panting, Ulrich collapsed onto the ground beside the persistently beeping computer and looked at it with indifference. As he caught his breath, he caught his thoughts. William was standing in the yard below him, and here my laptop blipped at him, begging to be understood. This alerted Ulrich suddenly to a fact that hadn't concerned him before, and with newly-sparked interest he opened the lid of the laptop and maximized each message. Ulrich knew he understood little about this intricate technology, but, nevertheless, he carefully perused every last word.

* * *

How long had it been? Minutes? Hours?

Aelita propped herself up at length, slowly and carefully. As she left the warmth of the leaf pile, she felt a chill spread over her body. It was still early afternoon, but the sun was almost invisible through the overcast sky. Aelita was surprised it hadn't rained, but she didn't waste too much time considering the weather. Despite the fact that she had no obligation to return to school, she still felt compelled to return to her comfortable dorm room and sleep the day off in her warm bed. Reluctantly, Aelita bid the wild forest good-bye and began to trudge toward the buildings.

Actually, she _would_ have gone toward them, if it hadn't been for me.

The movement behind her caused a pause, and when she turned to investigate she became so pale that my heart almost stopped. She looked at me long and hard, as if trying to tell if I were really there, and before long tears began to form in her eyes. My stomach dropped at the sight of her—for other reasons entirely—and Aelita walked forward slowly, testing each step as if the world would break beneath her. Was this real? Could it really be _Jeremie_?! She hesitated when she met me at arm's length, and I froze for fear of startling her. She seemed so fragile in that instant.

A second later, Aelita cried out and draped her arms around my neck (knocking my glasses askew), and through teary eyes she kissed me long and hard. I would have been glad, if it had been under any other circumstance. I held her for a while as she sobbed, though few tears crawled down her cheek because of the emotional strain that had taxed her an hour before. It was a lifetime before she regained part of her composure, and when she looked into my face I almost choked.

"J-Jeremie..." she hiccupped. "God...Jeremie..." My fingers stroked her pink hair, and she buried her face in my chest. "How are you alive?" she breathed into my shirt. "Is this real? God...Jeremie..."

I wanted to answer her; I wanted to tell her everything. I wanted to look into her eyes and tell her how much I loved her and how much I'd missed her. I wanted so badly to _answer_ her.

"It's your father," I felt myself speak instead. "Franz Hopper. Aelita, you've _got_ to come to the factory with me!" I sounded so excited, so enthralled by the discovery, but Aelita was soaring on such a high that she couldn't recognize the coldness that had possessed my face. "Come on, right now! You have to see this."

I held out my hand to her, smiling with calculated precision. She took my hand blissfully, and followed me away from the boarding school.


	9. Somewhere in the Middle

II.iii ; Somewhere in the Middle

* * *

"So you really, honestly, _really_ don't remember _anything_?"

William groaned, rubbing the back of his head.

"No, I _don't_, Odd! How many times do I have to explain until you—"

"Alright, alright, you don't have to get all mad," Odd muttered, throwing his hands above his head in mock surrender. "I'm just…a little shocked, I guess. You've been gone forever! What happened to—"

"Stop pestering him, Odd," Yumi growled from behind him. Odd threw a glare at her without thinking and immediately regretted the decision. Yumi's dark eyes flashed more powerful fury than anything he thought possible—for a human being, at least. The frustration seemed to radiate from her entire body: her posture, the way her mouth was pulled into a thin line, and, even more, from her eyes. Odd was forced to look away. "All you've done is ask him the same questions since you…" Yumi stopped, and Odd flicked his eyes back up—compelled by curiosity—in time to see her irate gaze float past his shoulder. Odd followed her glance.

A small crowd of students was beginning to assemble at the sudden reappearance of William, and that clearly annoyed Yumi more than Odd had, if that was physically possible. Yumi swiftly took William's arm and, with Odd power-walking behind, dragged him toward the boys' dorm building.

"Let's go somewhere where we can talk privately," she muttered through gritted teeth. "William, do you mind if we take over your room?"

"Yeah, that's fine. If it's still there," William added with a shake of his head.

Odd reconsidered following for a moment; being the subject of another—possibly worse—argument today scared him to death. But surely Yumi's rage would fizzle out by the time they reached the dorms and escaped their peers, and he reasoned that Yumi's fury couldn't be any stronger than Aelita's, so he continued to tag along.

Besides, even if it made Yumi mad, he was _dying_ to find out what had happened.

Once safely settled inside William's dorm room, the three finally had a chance to relax. Odd's prediction had thankfully turned out to be true, and Yumi seemed much more calm. He also couldn't help but notice that sometime during their trip to the room, William's hand had found Yumi's. Again. Odd chuckled once.

William hadn't changed a bit.

"So," Odd began slowly, testing the waters to see if he had truly been forgiven or if he'd simply been forgotten. Yumi waited for him to finish, and William seemed fairly preoccupied by the girl beside him, so Odd continued. "What _do_ you remember? Start from the beginning, when you were virtualized."

Yumi turned eagerly to see William's response. The dark-haired boy sighed, shaking his head as his eyebrows pulled together in concentration. "You know, I'm really not sure I'm remembering this right. It's all so blurred together, like I can't distinguish one picture from another. But I'm pretty sure XANA had me before I got onto Lyoko." His brow furrowed as he waved his hands around. "No, that's not what I meant. It was more like he had me picked out from the beginning. I dunno.

"All I remember is the jellyfish—Scyphozoa, sorry—coming up on me. It didn't seem very dangerous at the time"—Odd rolled his eyes—"but y'know, I really thought I could beat it. I didn't think it would…suck up my brain or whatever." Yumi grimaced at the memory, but William put up a finger, concentrating hard. He sat against the floor and pulled his head between his knees, locking his arms over the back of his neck. At last, he sighed and reclined against the wall, laying his head back against it.

"I saw little flashes of…it must have been Jeremie or something. It was so dark; I really couldn't see much of anything. It was like I was fading in and out of…sleep. It felt like a really bad nightmare. Not bad because it was scary with monsters or anything, but…scary because of the nothingness. Everything was empty—there wasn't a meaning for anything, because nothing existed. It's weird to describe it. But I was unconscious for most of it, so it felt like I'd only been sleeping for a little while. You know how you can have a few dreams a night, feel like it lasted forever, and wake up to find you'd only been sleeping for a few hours? I figured I'd been out a day at the most, because I only came to a few times, and every time I 'woke up,' I was sure I was in a fleeting little dream. I never imagined…" He let the sentence trail away.

They all stood there, silent for a long time. It didn't feel awkward at all, because each was occupied by his or her own thoughts, imagining what it must have been like. Odd lifted his eyes to meet theirs, searching their faces for a trace of tolerance that would allow him to speak.

"You…saw Jeremie. Why are you here, and he's not?" The question took none of them by surprise; it was something that they too had questioned, if only for a moment during the succession of fears and wonderings that had flitted through their minds. When no one bothered to respond, Odd expanded the question, filling in his own thoughts. "Why shouldn't he be here? Maybe he's already here. Maybe he's out there wandering in the woods or something—maybe—"

"Or maybe we haven't seen Jeremie yet because he's _not coming back_." Yumi's voice cracked in the wrong place, destroying the defensive façade she had otherwise successfully established. "Think about it. When Lyoko was destroyed, XANA was in control. Who was under XANA's influence? William. So who would XANA have protected from deletion? William. Unless Jeremie formed some secret alliance with XANA or something"—she had no idea how close to the truth she had come—"he's probably little bits of data floating around in that cyberspace _hell_ that William lived through, except he _can't _exist, and he _can't _wake up to have little dreams and little—"

Yumi stopped when her voice failed and her systems betrayed her. Her face burned red as her body shuddered in tremors of despair, shaking the building saline tears from her eyes. Odd looked back down at the floor, burning a hole in the carpet with his steady gaze.

"You don't know that," he whispered bitterly without looking up. "For all we know, he's still there, waiting for us to come help him—"

"Oh, don't even start, Odd Della Robbia!" Yumi snarled viciously, refusing to allow more tears to leak down her face. "Don't _start_ that crap."

Odd snapped his head up, glaring at her defensively. "What? You don't like what I'm going to say? I don't care, Yumi—we _need_ to go back to Lyoko! We need to go to the factory and check it out, even if there's no chance! How can we know if we never even try? Just once—just for Jeremie—let's go to Lyoko and fight! If William really is back, then some part of Lyoko must be there waiting for us. Some part of…XANA." Yumi winced, trembling with fury.

"I've already…I've already lost so many…Even if Lyoko is there," she managed to mutter, "I won't have any part of it." Odd looked at her pleadingly, begging with his eyes for Yumi to reconsider. He turned to William desperately, but the older boy shrugged. He wasn't going to interfere.

"Please, Yumi," Odd begged, his heart aching to restore some semblance of their former life. If they could just defeat XANA for good…If they could just go to Lyoko, just like old times…maybe his friends would forget the hatred and distance that festered between them. Maybe they could laugh together, joke together, _hang out_ without throwing verbal blows like lances, stabbing out each other's hearts. His own heart was already swathed in the biting cuts that had split open because of his previous attempts. "Just this once," he tried again, desperate more than ever, "can you pretend that none of this happened? Can you just pretend like the world never ended and _consider_ going back?"

He was afraid to look up, afraid to meet her gaze. "Out," she growled maliciously, throwing her finger up to point at the exit. "Get out _now,_ Odd. I never want to see you again. _Never_."

Odd threw her one last glare—filled with every drop of spite he could muster out of his failing heart—before stomping willingly out of her room.

It was difficult to fight the scream building in his throat, but he managed to contain it until he reached the solitude of his own room. Immediately, he collapsed on the bed, burying his head into his pillow, and shrieked. Again he filled his lungs, and emptied them in a cry that even the spongy pillow could barely muffle. He fought away the urge to cry and rolled onto his back.

A tiny scritch scratch on the floor below him (and the tiny whine that followed) reminded him of his little dog. The mongrel slipped up onto the bed with a little effort, and, sensing Odd's distress, came up beside him before curling into the boy's chest. Odd absentmindedly stroked the little ball, glad to have his one friend beside him. Even Ulrich wasn't there, he noticed dismally. He frowned in disappointment and turned onto his side, facing the wall and his companion.

"Why can't they all be as loyal as you, Kiwi," he muttered angrily under his breath, ignoring the stink that rolled off the dog's tongue. "Why can't they all care as much as you do? I tell ya, buddy, if we were a bunch of _dogs_, we would've forgiven each other by now." He frowned at the wall and closed his eyes.

He didn't have much time to fall asleep, though, because almost a full second later, a succession of quick, heavy footsteps erupted from the hallway, and a panting Ulrich burst through the door. Odd was about to turn on his roommate with fury, but stopped immediately when he saw the dire expression on Ulrich's face. His breath stopped when he recognized Jeremie's laptop in Ulrich's arm.

"It's…XANA," Ulrich managed to gasp, waving the laptop wide-eyed. Odd's body stiffened. "I…figured it out! Haha—Odd, it's XANA. There's…an activated tower in…I can't tell which sector, but I think a couple of scanners were activated too!" He paused a moment to calm his breathing.

It took a few seconds for the gravity of the news to fully settle on Odd, but soon his eyes widened at the knowledge he'd known must be true. Despite the alarm XANA's name set off in his body, Odd couldn't help but grin wildly.

"What are we waiting for?" Odd exclaimed, flying off the bed and bursting through the door. "Let's go!"

"Odd, I'll meet you at the factory," Ulrich called after his vanishing friend, barely in time for Odd to stop at the end of the corridor. "I'm going to find Yumi—she won't answer her phone, but I sent Aelita a text already. I hope she gets it," he added under his breath.

"She's in William's room," Odd called over his shoulder. Ulrich nodded once, and Odd disappeared, barely able to contain the warmth that had suddenly returned to his limbs.

He'd been right all along. There was no way his friends could say no now.

"In just a few minutes, everything will be"—he grinned madly, surprised at his own enthusiasm—"just like old times!"

He couldn't have been more wrong.

--

Sorry for the delay in updates! This story is drawing near a close, so I'm trying to drag it out as I iron out the kinks in the last chapters.

-Nimfalas/Nimfalath


	10. The World Is Alive

; The World is Alive

This is a long one, but it's worth it I think. A lot happens in this chapter. I've packed a ton of action in these next chapters to make up for the slow start.

* * *

_Click_

Yumi folded the phone back into her pocket, now that the power was off.

"Who was that?" William asked, his dark eyes wide with true interest.

"Nobody," Yumi answered, smiling unconvincingly at him. "It was just Ulrich. He won't stop calling me."

"Maybe it was important," William offered.

Yumi bit her lip and scowled at him. "He's just…mad at me. Really, what could be more important than this?" William looked long and hard at her, as if trying to take her apart. Yumi shifted uncomfortably under his gaze, waiting for him to speak.

"You and Ulrich were always…" But he trailed off and shrugged his shoulders. Yumi gave him a once-over and sighed. "So what'd you tell the principal?" he asked, laughing. "I mean, obviously people noticed that I…"

"Dunno," Yumi muttered, lost in her own thoughts. "We convinced everyone that you and Jeremie were on vacation or something." Yumi could hear William laugh, but it was distant and obscured. Her focus wasn't on the room or its guest, but on William's words before. It wasn't the first time that someone had been dumbfounded by the fact that she and Ulrich weren't…well, _together_. They had never dated—surely everyone knew that—but now that they didn't hang out it was as if the world had ended.

Well, for everyone but Yumi and Ulrich.

She winced and corrected her statement: for everyone but Yumi. Because she _didn't_ know how Ulrich felt. She hadn't talked to him since… She struggled to think, and eventually realized that she hadn't talked to Ulrich since that fight. The fight when they all decided it would be best to just…dissolve.

Unless she counted the incident earlier that same morning, when they had bumped into each other and barely exchanged hellos. But that could hardly be considered a conversation.

William noticed the pained expression drawing onto her face. "What is it?"

"Nothing," Yumi muttered, shaking herself back into the present. "Just bad memories."

"Like what?" She looked at him hard, but he still seemed genuinely interested. "I must have missed a lot, huh?"

"Not really," she admitted. "After that last trip, everyone sort of went their own way, so not much happened. Just schoolwork, I guess." He didn't look like he believed her, and then—to make it worse—he laughed. Yumi froze, and she felt her face pull taut in a scowl. "What?"

"Ah, it's just…" he took a moment to slow down. "For a while I was worried that I'd missed everything. I was convinced that you two had, y'know, gotten together by now, and I would be so out of whack that I'd never get caught up."

"Well, stuff _did_ happen."

"But the whole group went separate ways?" He cocked an eyebrow.

"Yeah."

William smiled. "Like I said! I didn't miss anything."

_But you did!_ Yumi moaned inside. _You missed everything!_ He had missed the crucial decisions, he had missed the pain, he had missed the sunshine and the moonlight. He had missed being alive, and he had missed Yumi.

And then with a sickening awareness, she realized that _she_ had missed everything.

Or, even worse, she had _ruined _everything. All this time that she had shied away from her friends—her _friends_, for that's what they were, even through all of this—she had shied away from a part of herself. They were her only friends at Kadic—she knew that beyond a doubt, having experienced these last months without them—and she had been perfectly fine with never seeing any of them again. Even when they tried (and boy had Odd tried) to make amends, she had pushed them away. Why on _earth_ had she done that?! She was as rooted to them as XANA had been rooted to Lyoko. She had missed so much! Months had been _wasted_ trying to push them aside.

Trying, and succeeding now.

How could she ever make up all that lost time? The damage was already done. And besides, though Odd was persistent, none of the others wanted to recompense. Aelita didn't want to. As far as she knew, Ulrich didn't want to.

So nothing she could do would ever bring back those old friendships and trusts.

Nothing _she_ could do.

"Yumi, you okay?"

But the conversation was cut short by a dim hum. It had been growing all this time, but suddenly it became a loud drone, and then an abrasive whine. Yumi folded her hands over her ears and shot William a quizzical glance.

"What's that noise?" she shouted, but it was so loud that even she couldn't hear her own words. She leapt to her feet in distress, looking around the room.

Though before a second had passed, she saw what it was.

Against the far side of the wall, a stereo system and racks of CDs cluttered William's desk. The power light was flashing green, and the volume was turned as high as it could go. A loud pounding filled her ringing ears, and she thought it was her own beating heart, except that her heart had stopped, and these pulsations were clearly nothing human-generated. Static white noise ripped through the drone, but the pulsations continued to fluctuate menacingly.

Then it all happened very fast.

Yumi saw four things happen at once. The first thing was the CD rack, which toppled over and scattered CD cases and discs into the air. The second thing was the vents, which began to spew hot, sticky steam around them. Next were the ceiling fan and the lights—the bulbs flickered out while the fan whirred to life in a frenzy above them. The fourth and last thing flashed through the darkness, obscured by the steam but recognizable anywhere. It was William's television screen, and the enormous red eye of XANA that flickered onto it through the black.

Yumi stifled a scream, and she heart William cry out beside her.

She stumbled through the darkness and felt cold metal brush against her body—she thrashed out with a side-long kick and knocked the thing aside, but there was so much happening at once, and she was completely blind in the pitch-black. She stumbled against something, and crashed head-first into a hardwood corner of something else. She heard a whir above her, and felt a breeze tease her hair, but it was distant. She instinctively curled into a tight ball with her hands wrapped above her head, and then a heavy weight came down on her cowering body. In the darkness she couldn't tell what it was, but once the furniture touched her, a thousand things fell from it and toppled onto her and around her as well. Smothered in what felt like books or maybe cases, she was afraid to move, and she could hear nothing above the noise.

Yumi screamed for William, but she couldn't hear a thing.

Too soon, the noise was beginning to fade away, and a hazy film was overwhelming her mind. She struggled to stay awake, but her head was throbbing where it had crashed into that sharp corner. She tasted something warm like copper, and then she didn't taste anything at all; she had been dragged out of consciousness.

A week may have passed for all Yumi knew—it certainly felt like it had been an eternity since she's opened her eyes. She blinked to confirm that her eyes were indeed open; it was still dark as night in her rubbish pile. But—yes—she was awake. Something above her moved, and the noise died abruptly. Her ears were ringing so loudly that she couldn't hear anything for several minutes (and at first she wasn't sure if the noise really had faded), but eventually she could make out coherent words—anxious, pained words, but something articulate at least! Then she recognized the voice, and she struggled out of the pile.

"Ulrich," she breathed, meaning for it to sound like a question, then unsure of how his name should have sounded. She was dizzy and disoriented, but she was quickly becoming more and more aware of what was happening. The bookcase had been dragged off of her body, and now she was being pulled from the pile of books and papers and all sorts of the random things that had been placed on the shelves. It took a minute for her eyes to adjust to the light, but once she could see, she wished she couldn't. Ulrich had hold of her arms, but he was fighting for breath and spattered with scarlet red.

"Oh…thank God…" he moaned when he felt her moving and saw her open eyes. He fell back and let her kick away the odds and ends on her own, because her strength was returning and his was quickly draining. She collapsed against him and immediately scoured the room in search of William. She spotted his motionless body against the adjacent wall and cried out. His black hair was matted with dark red, but his face was turned away from her.

Ulrich felt her panic and held her wrist firmly. "He's alive," he said, holding her fast. "But we've got to get him help…" Two students had entered the room, shock and fear splayed across their faces. Yumi only just noticed them, but they had obviously noticed her for some time.

"Justin and I will get help," the taller boy said immediately. Ulrich nodded in thanks, and the two boys tore out of the room without delay. Yumi heard other whispers, but she ignored them.

"Why didn't you answer your phone?" Ulrich grunted, pulling himself up.

"If it was so important," she muttered, standing and drawing herself away, "you should have come and told me yourself."

"It's XANA!" he shouted angrily.

"Obviously," she quipped.

They stood staring at each other intensely for several minutes, neither one willing to relinquish his or her anger. Ulrich looked like he was waiting for something, but what? He looked disappointed—and angry!—but _why_? He had never cared about anything to do with her since—

"Well, let's go!" he said suddenly, matter-of-factly. Yumi blinked.

"Go where?"

"To the _factory_." He stared at her hard, confused and irritated. "Lyoko is there," he told her, desperation crawling into his voice. Yumi froze. "XANA's activated a tower—several towers I think, oh hell, I don't know! But here's the thing; two scanners were activated too—and that was _after_ William showed up. I don't know if Jeremie's back, but there are two people on Lyoko right now. I'm pretty sure one of them is Aelita. And _we've_ got to go fight!"

Yumi's face was frozen in a blank, dumbfounded stare. "No," she said simply, stubbornly.

"Why _not_?"

"Because—" her voice cracked, and she swallowed before continuing. "Because I don't want to get involved. Not again. We've already lost… we lost so much the first time…"

"But you're already involved!" he cried. "Do you really think not helping is going to make it better? Geez—I've _never_ seen XANA attack like this. We're going to need everyone…"

"I _just_ got William back." Ulrich stopped, his heart pounding. Yumi folded her arms, fighting away tears—those floods of traitorous saline. "I don't want to…to go back…" She shook her head miserably, torn at her core, and walked out of the room. She'd gone several feet down the hall, pushing past awed peers, before she heard his footsteps pad after her in pursuit. She hurried her pace, but it wasn't any use.

"Yumi, stop!" Ulrich cried powerfully, forcing her suddenly and fiercely against the wall. Yumi stood hushed and petrified as she watched his face in front of her own, and she couldn't have moved if she'd wanted to. His arms pinned her effectively against her barricade, but his face had gone entirely blank. She searched his eyes for some sign, but found only his loss of words and his abrupt loss of anger.

What? Why did he suddenly care so much?

Without warning, Ulrich thrust his lips against hers, and the contact ignited sparks through every nerve in her body. Shocked, Yumi felt her body burst into flame, but when she closed her eyes and lost herself in the kiss, his lips quickly parted from hers. She opened her eyes and looked sadly into his face, meeting his forlorn eyes.

_No…don't stop…_ her mind whispered, her heart pounded. She leaned into him this time, and he eagerly joined her passion. The unspoken weight of their hearts poured out for the first time, and as their tongues battled fiercely and their hearts ached furiously, Yumi let her delight well into her eyes and burst over the brim as tears of joy. His hands tenderly touched the bare skin of her waist, and the places where his fingers lighted on her skin burned with fiery electricity. She touched his face with her own fingers, drawing him deeper into the kiss, and though his arms no longer held her in her spot, she had long abandoned the thought of escape. Yumi felt his body draw closer, but their mouths parted as his body shuddered violently. Yumi leaned against the wall and supported Ulrich's body as he suddenly collapsed. Her heart imploded when she saw the cause of his weakness, and tenderly she helped him to the floor.

Yumi knelt beside him and pressed desperately against the ragged side wound with her palm, but his crimson blood continued to boil out. She would not give up on him.

"Ow," Ulrich complained between gasping breaths. "You're…hurting-OW!"

"Sorry," she said. "I…I don't know what else to do…You need to stop bleeding."

"It's not…exactly something…I can control!" he gasped, chuckling. "It doesn't matter. Just…help me to the factory…" Yumi dropped her hands and stared at him, completely taken aback.

"You're not actually going to fight XANA like this, are you?" Her stricken face spoke more than her words. "There's no way you can fight. You…I'm not going to let you." Her final words were defiant, but so was his face.

"Aelita needs us," said Ulrich. "I'm not going to let them down." Yumi surrendered to his determination and smiled sadly at him. "You look like crap," he muttered, touching the streak of dried blood where she'd hit her head.

"You're no better," she retaliated, burying her head in the crook of his warm neck. They cherished the moment, clinging to each other in sincere, shameless love. Without another word, she lifted him onto his feet, and together they made their way toward the factory.

Toward the factory, and toward Lyoko—that thing which had brought them together in the first place, and which had returned them to each other at long last.


End file.
